October 1890 Colorado Springs, Colorado

Blood. Cough. Diarrhea. Tom has declined so rapidly he is now confined to one of the tent houses reserved for the gravely ill that dot the perimeter of St. Francis’s high on the hill overlooking Colorado Springs. Mary Agnes is not allowed inside.

When the doctor said Tom’s time was near—please, she pleads again, not yet—she spent an additional five dollars per week to secure him a place in one of the coveted octagonal canvas-sided huts in addition to the original five dollars per week she had paid for months now for his care and a never-ending supply of milk, eggs, and beef. He is forced now to drink a gallon of milk per day and swallow twelve raw eggs. He can no longer stomach beef.

Mary Agnes stands by the screened door of Section House F and calls Tom’s name. She has not told Tom about her encounter with Mr. French. It would upset him, and he has hardly the energy to breathe. Nor has she told Tilly or anyone else, although she avoids Mr. French, daggers for eyes when she cannot dodge him.

“That you, Mary A.?”

“’Tis, Tom.” She places her hand on the screen as if by doing so the screen will burn away and she can touch her husband. Ten feet has never seemed so far.

“The stool still out there?”

“Yes.” She lowers herself on a three-legged stool beside the door and removes her hat.

“Well, if it isn’t the prettiest woman in all Colorado Springs.”

“Pah. You probably say that to all the nurses.” Humor is the only way, she thinks. The only way I can get through this.

“I might . . .” He laughs and then begins to cough. He’s propped up on a cot to the left side of the hut. A bedside table, washbasin, chest of drawers, stove, and open closet fill out the rest of the room. His reclining invalid’s chair has been moved out as he is confined to bed now.

“It wouldn’t surprise me.”

“I wish it were you bringing me milk, rubbing my shoulders, putting me to bed, though.” He drops his hanky on the floor. “Drat.” He stretches one arm off the side of the bed but cannot reach it.

“I could come in.”

“You know what the doctor said.”

“I don’t care what he said.” She opens the screen door and closes it softly behind her. “No one will know.”

She scoops up the hanky, throws it in the hamper, and opens the top dresser drawer. “Here.” She hands Tom a fresh hanky and sits on the edge of his bed, taking his weak hand in hers. She bends to kiss his cheek.

“This is not what I had in mind,” he says. He looks past Mary Agnes toward the screen door. “I pictured a houseful of youngsters and Sunday dinners and—”

“Today is not a day for words,” she says. She lowers herself into Tom’s thin arms and rests her head on his sunken chest. His heart beats hollowly, and slow.

One by one people leave, or die, she thinks, all of Ireland it seems, until there is no one left except the few, the stubborn, the ill, the poor, always the poor. Those left behind feel the absence of those gone on ahead, wherever it is they are going. And now she fears she must let the dearest to her go.

Dear Helen,

It is with great sadness that I tell you Tom has passed on.

Mary Agnes stops and lowers her head to the writing desk. She tries to imagine the scene, but no matter how many times she envisions it, she knows she’ll never really know. She wasn’t there. The nuns told her Tom just stopped breathing—no warning, no struggle. By the time Sister Mary Hermana called for Last Rites, he was gone. Because of tuberculosis, his body had to be cremated immediately.

I held onto hope that he would be cured. I had to, didn’t I? That is why we came to Colorado Springs. But his luck didn’t hold now, did it? All I do is cry, day and night. I cannot eat or think. To add to my grief, I haven’t his body. They cremated him, Helen. Cremated him! I didn’t even get to say goodbye! All I have left is one picture and my ring. I feel I am held together by bones alone.

Mary A.

The day bruises from blue to black. Mary Agnes sits in Tom’s chair late into the night, devoid of feeling, yet filled with grief, if such a thing is possible, to be empty and full at the same time.

ON SATURDAY, MARY AGNES DRAGS herself out to pick up The Weekly Gazette. She hasn’t been to dinner all week; Tilly knocks and leaves her a covered dish outside her door just before noon each day. The first day there was a small rose, the last of the season, and a note in Tilly’s neat hand: “To cheer you on this dark day.”

The air has a tinge of fall in it as Mary Agnes nods to the newsagent. She is dressed in black. He declines payment as if he knows, here is another widow. She carries the paper like deadweight from the newsagent’s shop back to her room and sits in Tom’s red chair in front of the window. She cannot bring herself to open the paper yet and wills her mind to think of Tom when they first met, so handsome and solicitous and funny.

Wasn’t it he who said, “new beginnings?” Mary Agnes cannot think of life without him beside her. She recited her vows just a scant two years ago, with a lifetime of ahead of them, until death us do part part part part.

She picks up the paper and scans the first page. “Railroad Wrecks” is the lead headline, a litany of rail accidents this past week in Missouri and Alabama and Illinois. Ohio and New York. And then pages of politics, strikes, investigations. Where is it? Pages four, five, six, seven. Words, words, and more words. No Tom. She wants him to be everywhere, on the train, drinking champagne at the hotel, here in the chair next to her, not in a death notice.

And there, finally, on page eight, squeezed between an advertisement for Perkins and Holbrook and another for Bijou Jewelers: Notice of Death, a whole life whittled down to fifty-eight words:

Thomas J. Halligan died Monday at St. Francis Hospital after a lengthy illness. Born February 24, 1867 in County Monaghan, Ireland, Halligan’s family settled in Peoria, Illinois. He worked as a dispatcher for Chicago-Rock Island Railway. He is survived by his wife, Mary Agnes (nee Coyne) of Colorado Springs, and his parents and brothers, all of Peoria.

Mary Agnes cannot contain her tears and sits, the paper open on her lap, until the sun is long past the day. She fills the hours with every memory she has of Tom, right up until the end. “See you tomorrow, my love” was the last thing he said to her, but she knows now that will never happen. Near midnight, she folds the newspaper and goes to bed without changing. Nothing will be the same ever again.

There being no church in town to offer a Mass of the dead, at least no church I’ll set foot in, Mary Agnes veils herself in black and takes the trolley to Manitou Springs on Monday to attend weekday Mass at Our Lady of Perpetual Help. She dissolves into the Mass and offers a prayer for the repose of Tom’s soul. The language is comforting, and Jesus is here. He is always here. And Mary, Blessed Mother, you are always with me. Long after Mass is over she sits, as close to the church of her ancestors as she will ever be in Colorado, until she risks missing the last trolley back.

She returns to the boardinghouse long after supper and swipes a biscuit and an apple from the pantry before stealing up to her room. She is in no mood to encounter the Smith sisters or Mr. French. Especially Mr. French.

Taking the coffee can from its place on the shelf inside the armoire, she does what she’s dreaded to do these last few weeks: Count out their—my—dwindling savings. Bills and coins fall onto the coverlet, far fewer than the bankroll they arrived with. Placing the treasury notes in order, fifties, twenties, tens, fives, twos, and ones (she doesn’t bother with the hill of change), she counts out $149.

Her board is twenty-four dollars a month, meals included. If she doesn’t spend a penny more, she can stay here for almost half a year. But she knows that’s unrealistic. She and Tom were spending ten dollars a month on other expenses, medicines and clothing and newspapers and dances, even before he went to St. Francis. Even without the medicines, that would cut her time in Colorado Springs to far less than half a year.

A pang hits her midsection. I have only enough then for a couple of months. November, December . . . and in this climate I will need a new winter coat. Ten more dollars! With these calculations, she has three months of funds left, at the outside. That brings her to January, and she’ll need train fare to go back to . . . to where?

Mary Agnes stuffs the bills and coins back into the coffee can, slicing her thumb on the rim. She stanches blood with her other sleeve and holds it there until the blood subsides. And now I’ll have to launder the bedding. She crumples over, holds her torso, rocks. Tom. Tom. Tom.

“I’M NEEDING HELP IN THE KITCHEN,” Tilly says after supper the next week. “Would you consider it? Everyone loves your pies.” It sounds like, Vood you consider it?

“Are you a mind reader?”

“No, vie?”

“I haven’t enough to stay much longer, Tilly. I’m going to have to work, here or somewhere. Maybe The Antlers?”

Tilly whistles. “I can’t pay vages like The Antlers, but I can slice your rent in half.”

“That buys me time.” What will I do without Tom?

“Have you decided . . .”

“No. Tom wanted to be buried here. And now there won’t even be a burial. I don’t know as I can leave him, though, even if he is not here.” They cremated him, Helen, she had written. Cremated him!

Tilly tosses the dish rag into the sink and puts her arm around Mary Agnes.

“The vay I see it,” she begins, “you have two choices. You can wallow in your grief or continue to live. It is up to you to decide.”

“But I have just lost my husband!”

“Ja, ja, you have every right to be angry. Sad. But it doesn’t change anything, Mary A. Tom is gone now. And you have the choice.”

For the next six months, Mary Agnes works herself to the bone, Tom is gone, Tom is gone, to the point that Tilly must remind her to eat. She is now down to one hundred ten pounds and has had to take her skirt in twice. It is a painful reminder to wear black every day. She misses every little aspect of Tom, his smile, his hand on her elbow, his tender lovemaking. She has no energy for anything, to write Helen, to take a walk. She avoids Mr. French at every turn, and stares blankly at him when he calls her name or winks while she serves up dinner.

She is tempted to tell Tilly about her horrid encounter with Mr. French, but she knows Tilly needs the room and board now that the Smith sisters have found alternate lodging, their rooms empty for several months now with no new boarders. One couple did inquire about rooms just yesterday but left in a hurry when a mouse scampered across the parlor floor just as Tilly was about to take them upstairs.

Helen has written Mary Agnes, though, more than once. The last letter is open on Mary Agnes’s dresser. The last paragraph gnaws at her.

Now that I am graduating from bookkeeping school, I am thinking of moving out on my own to one of the new boarding houses for young women here in the city. Think of the freedom! Shopping and dances and stepping out with young men. How can I persuade you to come back to Chicago? Please?

Should I go back to Chicago? Mary Agnes puts the thought out of her mind for now. It is too soon to be making any decisions, her husband just deceased. She longs to have a gravesite to visit, but there is no headstone. Regardless, she walks the long tree-lined rows at Evergreen Cemetery every Saturday afternoon in any and all weather, reading headstones and wondering why no one else is there today talking to their loved ones. Because it’s raining, you ninny. The next Saturday, she finds a stately oak at the far end of the grounds and sits under its canopy. There, she talks freely to Tom, what she has been doing and thinking and feeling that week. Under that tree, she feels closer to him than anywhere else, for he is here—or should be here—among the dead. One might think she would spiral deeper into sadness doing this—a reminder that he was cremated—but the opposite is true. She knows his spirit is with her, around her in some intangible way. That keeps her to rights.

She starts, shyly at first, to look forward to small things then, lemonade on a hot day, napping, Sunday dinners. Sunday dinners are the highlight of the week, especially when Tilly’s brother Dutch comes down from the ranch where he works. Mary Agnes has taken to sitting with Tilly and Dutch on Sundays, any excuse to avoid Mr. French, especially now that the Smith sisters have gone.

“Tell me about ranch life,” Mary Agnes asks one particularly warm spring day in May when Dutch has come for Sunday dinner. She is wading into conversation, one sentence at a time. It is a long penance, to grieve the dead. She wonders if she will ever laugh again or love again. But joining in with the living is a start. Only a few more months and she will be able to shed her black, and next spring, she can wear white again, sing again.

“What is it I don’t do!” he laughs.

“It must be heaven to have the mountains and grasslands and creeks as companions,” she continues, “and no one to answer to.”

“Except Henry.”

“Henry?”

“Henry Hansen, the ranch owner. Best in the district.”

“And you’re not partial?”

“I’m not. Talk to anyone on the ridge.”

“The ridge?”

“There’s a divide between here and Denver. We call it the ridge.”

“Tell me more.”

“Depending on where you stand,” Dutch continues, “you can look north or south or west or east and not see anything made by man. No houses, fences, barns. The grass grows tall away from the creeks. Mighty cold, the creeks, even on the hottest summer day. You can sit there, surrounded by aspens and willows to escape the heat. The cattle do, don’t let anyone tell you they’re not smart. There’s always wind, though. Sometimes I think it’s alive.”

“Hmmm.” She closes her eyes. It helps to picture serene scenes, the plains, the mountains, the streams, anything to get the image of Tom wasting away far from her consciousness, my husband, dead at twenty-three. Today, she concentrates on the scene Dutch is painting with words.

After a half minute, Mary Agnes opens her eyes and looks to Dutch. “All that land, the creeks, the wind even. I can picture it. Thank you.”

“We’re getting to our busy season. Cattle drives upping. Won’t be by for dinner for a while, maybe not until the fall.” He turns to his sister. “And I’ll miss your cooking, Tilly. It’s niet goed at the ranch.”

The next week, Dutch isn’t there. When she helps Tilly with washing up, Mary Agnes realizes she misses his company. The following week, Dutch shows up for dinner. She is surprised and happy and a bit giddy. The dinner conversation intrigues her, life at the ranch. And he is so alive.

“Do you have a moment?” Dutch asks after dinner, pulling Mary Agnes aside. He steers her to the back porch, where they stand along the porch rail in the mid-afternoon sun, another gorgeous day in Colorado Springs. She is aware of his presence, and that they are alone. She hasn’t stood this close to any man since Tom died.

“We’re needing help on the ranch,” Dutch says. “Our cook up and left and we’re in a bit of a pickle, with me cooking. It was bad enough before, but now it won’t be long before I’ve poisoned everyone.”

Mary Agnes laughs. Did I just laugh? “I couldn’t. What would Tilly do? She depends on me here.”

“I talked it over with Tilly before I approached you, Mrs. Halligan. She agrees. We can double your wages at the ranch. But there will be more responsibility.”

“How far . . . and please, call me Irish.”

“Just over the rise, ten or twelve miles. Don’t worry, you’d have lodgings at the ranch house and we’ll come for dinner Sundays here to Tilly’s when we can get away. At least every other week in the fall and winter and spring. Can’t guarantee summers, though. That’s our busiest time.”

Tilly swings the porch door open, drying her hands on her apron. “You’d be a fool not to take Pieter up on this offer,” she says. “There isn’t a finer rancher in all the area than Henry Hansen, and my brother here can watch out for you. I can do just fine on my own. And we’ll see you on Sundays. You can help me with washing up. And maybe bring a pie.”

Mr. French pokes his head out the back door. “I can’t help overhearing. I wonder if I might have a word with Mrs. Halligan. I have an offer for her as well . . .”

Never. Mary Agnes’s skin crawls with invisible ants as she makes a snap decision. It might be too soon to make a change, but, as Tom would say, new beginnings.

“Yes, Dutch. Give me a few minutes and I’ll have my things ready. Tilly, would you mind coming upstairs to help me pack?”